ROBERTS: In keeping with the practices of this Court, we don’t allow anyone to complete a full sentence before interrupting them. Tell us why the people who hired you should even be allowed to bring a case.

COOPER: Because California said so.

GINSBURG: So? We’ve said before that in order to be able to bring a federal case, you have to have an injury in fact, something that is specific to you.

COOPER: But these people were injured. They didn’t want gay people to marry, and now look! Gays. Lesbians. Able to marry at will. It’s very injurious. They’re injured just thinking about it.

Failure is illuminating. It reveals every broken board beneath our feet, every crack in the wall, every pothole in the road. Do not shun failure. High-five it. Hug it. Engage in lusty pawing with it. Failure means you’re doing. Everybody fails before they succeed. Failure is how we learn. Failure is part of the grand tradition of figuring out how to be awesome.

Totally correct. About anything, really, but in particular anything having to do with the creative arts. It takes a lot of practice, a lot of experimentation, a lot of try-fail-try-fail-try-fail, and did I mention a lot of practice? to make it up the Creative Arts Mountain. If you can't learn from your mistakes, you'll never make it to the top of that mountain, and if you're afraid of making mistakes, you'll be so paralyzed you'll never make it past the foothills.

Friday, March 15, 2013

If you've just wandered in off the internet, hi and welcome. :) I do these posts every month (except last month, but anyway), so if this post isn't dated in the same month you're in, click here to make sure you're seeing the most recent one.

Markets with specific deadlines are listed first, "Until Filled" markets (if there are any -- none this month) are at the bottom. There are usually more details on the original site; always click through and read the full guidelines before submitting. Note that some publishers list multiple antho guidelines on one page, so after you click through you might have to scroll a bit.

Third Flatiron Publishing is an e-publishing venture based in Boulder, Colorado. We are looking for submissions to our quarterly themed online anthologies. Our focus is on science fiction and fantasy and anthropological fiction. We’re looking for tightly plotted tales in out-of-the-ordinary scenarios.

Please send us short stories that revolve around age-old questions and have something illuminating to tell us as human beings. Fantastical situations and creatures, exciting dialog, irony, mild horror, and wry humor are all welcome. Stories should be between 1,500 and 3,000 words.

Role models for the type of fiction we want include Kurt Vonnegut, Arthur C. Clarke, Dan Simmons, Connie Willis, Vernor Vinge, and Ken Kesey. We want to showcase some of the best new shorts available today.

Click through to the "Submissions" tab for preferred formats, etc.

For each issue, we will also accept a few very short humor pieces on the order of the "Shouts and Murmurs" feature in The New Yorker Magazine (600 words or so). These can be written from a first-person perspective or can be mini-essays that tell people what they ought to do, how to do something better, or explain why something is like it is, humorously. An SF/Fantasy bent is preferred.

Your story must be original work, with the digital rights unencumbered. Beginning with the Summer 2013 issue, accepted stories will be paid at the flat rate of 3 cents per word (U.S.), in return for the digital rights to the story. All other rights will remain with the author. We no longer offer royalties, as we're now into our second year.

Gothic literature has always possessed a dark attraction ripe with the promise of the forbidden and the sensual. This theme has been successfully explored in my anthology Red Velvet and Absinthe, but with a far gentler touch. In Darker Edge of Desire, I will take the sexualized Gothic and ratchet it up a few notches into the danger zone, opening the door into the darker side of lust and love that only the courageous dare to venture through.

I am looking for atmospheric and high quality stories with a distinct Gothic flavour that explore our more forbidden desires and contain plenty of added kink. In these tales love and lust know no boundaries, and all nature of being—from vampires, werewolves, shape shifters, ghosts, succubae and creatures we may not even have heard of—can be found. Think Red Velvet and Absinthe, but with some very sharp edges!

Submission deadline: April 1, 2013

(I’ll be selecting stories on a rolling basis, therefore earlier submissions are strongly encouraged, though I’ll still consider stories that make it in by the deadline).

Word count:

3,000 to 6,500

What I’m looking for:

Well-developed story lines and well-crafted prose told in a unique voice and containing interesting characters and settings. Stories may be set in the past, present, or future. Stories from female and male writers are welcome, as are those written from the POV of characters of any gender and containing characters of any sexual orientation.

Note that sexually explicit content is acceptable as well as a more subtle approach; however, absolutely no stock sex scenes or formulaic writing/terminology. Please refer to my previous anthologies to get an idea of the variety and style of content I look for. No excessive gore or violence. No reprints.

Payment:

One-time payment in the range of USD $50-70 (payable on publication) and 2 copies of the anthology.

Submission requirements:

Stories should be formatted as follows: double-spaced Arial 12-point black font Word or RTF document. Indent the first line of each paragraph by half an inch. Do not add extra lines between paragraphs or any other irregular spacing. American spelling and punctuation only (i.e. quote marks, etc.). Include your legal name (and pseudonym if applicable), postal address, and a fifty-word maximum author bio written in the third person. Contract is for one-time, non-exclusive anthology rights with one year’s exclusivity from date of publication. (This may be waived if your story is selected for a “Best Of” collection). No simultaneous submissions please.

In the subject line of your email, please state: Darker Edge of Desire

The Future Embodied – An anthology of speculative stories exploring how science and technology might change our bodies and what it means to be human.

The editors are looking for character-driven, near-future stories of how the trajectory of current science and technology could impact our daily lives and choices. Social sciences and as-yet-untested or anecdotal discoveries are fair game. If an idea or discovery has the potential to impact human behavior and bodies, it could make a great story.

What Type of Stories We’re Looking For:

We are looking for stories of medical and aesthetic body modification. Consider topics like genetic engineering, prosthetics, implants, body ornamentation, surgical augmentation, and age retardation or reversal.

Surprise us. Don’t give us stories that we’ve read before.

We want this anthology to embody the wide range of human experience, voices, and bodies, and, in particular, to credibly consider our present and future demographics. You are encouraged to populate your stories of the future with the kinds of bodies that have been under-represented in speculative fiction but which should be ever more present in visions of our near future — aging bodies, obese bodies, chronically ill bodies, diverse racial and multi-racial bodies, bodies from diverse geographies…

Good Fiction Examples:

== "Faces in Revolving Souls" by Caitlin R Kiernan. This is a story that deftly balances the idea of how a science might progress AND the human feelings behind such changes and how it might change their experience of the world.

What do we want to avoid:

== This anthology specifically is concentrating on the evolution of the human body through technology. We are not looking for disembodied avatar stories.
== We enjoy historical science fiction, but this is not the anthology for it.
== We are not looking for poetry for this anthology.

Details:

Word-count: 2,000 to 5,500

Worldwide print and e-book rights (exclusive for 6 months, non-exclusive for an additional 30 months). Exceptions will be made for stories accepted for “Best Of” anthologies.

The Future Embodied will be available in both print and e-book formats.

Submissions open March 1, 2013, and will close at 11:59 PST on April 15, 2013.

You may submit at: future.embodied.anthology@gmail.com (Do not submit before March 1st 2013 or your submission will be deleted)

Queries and questions may be sent to future.embodied.anthology@gmail.com. (You may send queries and questions anytime.)

All responses will be accepted or rejected by July 15th, 2013. Please do not query about submitted stories before then.

No multiple or simultaneous submissions. Our word count limits are hard for open submissions.

Please use standard format guidelines. If it is difficult to read, we will reject your story. Your story must include your name, address, telephone number, email address, and approximate word count on the first page.

Your cover letter should include your complete contact information, story title, approximate word count, and a short bio.

Payment:

3 cents per word, paid within 90 days after publication. Plus contributor copy of print and e-book.

Stories should be the type generally referred to as "sword and sorcery" and must have a strong female protagonist whom the reader will care about. See Sword & Sorceress 22, Sword & Sorceress 23, Sword & Sorceress 24, Sword & Sorceress 25, Sword & Sorceress 26, and Sword & Sorceress 27 (or S&S 1-20) for examples. We do not want stories with explicit sex, gratuitous violence, or profanity. We are NOT a market for poetry. We are willing to consider stories set in modern times (urban fantasy), but we won't buy more than one or two of those for the anthology. We always want something short and funny for the last story.

No reprints. No simultaneous submissions.

With regard to multiple submissions, do not submit more than one story at a time. If we've rejected your first one, you may send one more, as long as it's before the deadline. We have occasionally bought someone's second sumbmission. We have never bought a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, or eighth submission. If you send us two stories, and we don't hold either of them, wait until next year to try again. Please do not re-submit stories we have already rejected (including stories rejected in previous years).

If you have not previously sold to Sword & Sorceress, please read "What is a Short Story?" and "Why Did my Story Get Rejected?" before submitting to us.

Please do not explain or describe your story in the e-mail (cover letter). If your story can't stand on its own, fix the story.

Reading period: Saturday, April 13 to Saturday, May 11, 2013. Stories received before or after this period will be deleted unread.

Response time is expected to follow MZB's traditional standards: you should hear within a week if we're holding your story for the final line-up or rejecting it.

Deadline: May 11, 2013.

Length: up to 9,000 words, with preference given to shorter stories. The longer a story is, the better it has to be. Long stories should be submitted early in the reading period.

Formatting and Submission:

Format with one-inch margins on all four sides of page.

Please do not use a header or footer.

Your name, full mailing address, and email address must be in the upper left corner, single spaced.

Skip two lines, center the text, then put the title, with your name (or byline) on the next line. We're not going to be as rigid as MZB was about pen names, but we expect them to be reasonable, rather than cute.

The rest of the manuscript should be single-spaced, with the first line of each paragraph indented 1/2 inch.

If you need to indicate a break, put "#" on a line by itself, centered.

Do not underline; use italics instead. Do not use bold face. We prefer Courier New font, size 12.

Word count will be determined by our word processor; that way it will be the same for everyone.

Save your document as an .rtf file (rich text format or interchange format, depending on what your computer calls it). E-mail as it as an attachment to mzbworks at yahoo dot com. The subject line should be "SS28, your last name, story title" (e.g.: SS28, Bradley, Dark Intruder) -- we don't want submissions caught in the spam filter.

Rights purchased: first rights, non-exclusive eBook and audio book rights.

Payment: 5 cents per word as an advance against a pro rata share of royalties and foreign or other sales.

SUBMISSION PERIOD
Submissions will be accepted from March 1 – May 15, 2013. We expect to make our final selections by August 15, 2013.

PAYMENT
We pay $200 (US) upon acceptance.

LENGTH
We recommend a length of 1,500 – 7,500 words. We may choose to print shorter or longer stories in some cases, but this should be your target word count.

RIGHTS
If your submission is accepted we will buy the following rights:

= World anthology rights in English and translation
= Audio and ebook anthology rights

World anthology rights and audio/ebook anthology rights are specific to anthologies. These are non-exclusive licenses allowing us to use your story in an anthology only. Specifying “in translation” allows us to request that your work be included in any potential foreign editions as well.

You retain all other print rights. So you’re free to also sell your story to magazines, or websites, or podcasts, or as an individual short story (say, on Kindle), or in a collection of your own work, or even sell it to another anthology after our book has been out for a while. It’s your story, and you keep it, we just ask that we get to be first to print it.

Additionally, we expect to release a Creative Commons edition of the book. It’s not required but if you have strong feeling about it, please let us know upfront.

FORMATTING
We only accept email submissions. You can either paste your story into the body of your email message or send an attachment. For attachments, please use Microsoft Word (DOC), Rich Text Format (RTF), or Plain Text (TXT) formats only. Any word processor should be able to save a file as at least one of those formats.

HOW TO SUBMIT
Send your story to anthology at swordandlaser dot com. Please use the following subject line when submitting…

[SLANTH] STORY TITLE – Your Name

So if your name is Nick Scalzi and if your story is called “YOUNG MAN’S FIGHT” then the subject line of your email should read…

[SLANTH] YOUNG MAN’S FIGHT – Nick Scalzi

Please follow this format, so your submission does not get overlooked!

Next, in the body of your email, please include the following:

= Title: The title of your story

= Pen name: How you want your name to appear in print

= Word count: The count of the words.

= Real name: This is the name that will go on the contract. So no pseudonyms or nicknames

= Email address

= Phone number

= Short biography: This is your chance to tell us A LITTLE about yourself and your writing experience.

All of this information is REQUIRED. You cannot omit any part of this information. You can keep the bio very short of course, that’s up for interpretation but every other piece of information has to be there or your submission will be rejected.

In return we promise not to share any of your personal information with ANYBODY, and we will only use your contact information to tell you whether your story was accepted, and then once to tell you when the book is finished. We will always try to contact you via email first. We will only use the phone number if we need to get in touch with you and email doesn’t work.

If your story is accepted we’ll ask you to confirm all your information, and we’ll also give you a chance to write a new short biography for publication in the book.

Finally, we ask that each writer limit themselves to 3 submissions. We also require only previously unpublished work, and no simultaneous submissions. That means when you submit to us, you haven’t submitted the story to anyone else.

[Click through for lengthy explanations of what they are and aren't looking for.]

Glam rock was arguably the most visually outrageous and flamboyant embodiment of rock and pop fusion in history. From the latter half of the sixties to the early seventies, individuals were unafraid to paint bright designs on their faces, strive for sexual androgyny, and enhance their performances with unapologetic theatrics.

In our Glam Rock anthology, we’re looking for short stories that depict at least one character who is a glam rock star, be it the lead singer or part of the band. They can be male or female, but we’re looking for the gender ambiguity, androgyny, and bisexuality aspects that were so indicative of this period in rock and pop. Bring on the costumes, the bright colors, and the droves of glitter-bedecked fans! We want to see your main characters lighting up the stage and weaving a tangled web in their personal lives.

If set in the historical period, we won’t dissuade writers from capitalizing on the unprotected sex, drugs, and glamor that defined the times. We are not looking for RPF (real person fiction), so no pulling real rock stars from history. Feel free to take inspiration from the real thing, but this is your chance to get original and knock our platforms off! Make your rock stars the epitome of the glam rock era: Beautiful, tragic, and all things in excess.

Authors will receive royalties as well as an initial payment of $50 for their story. This payment is not an advance and does not have to be earned out before royalties are paid. Royalties on individual e-book releases will be 50% of cover price on direct sales through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 40% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors. In addition, authors will receive the same percentage royalty on sales of the anthology e-book divided equally among the authors, as well as 25% of cover price on direct sales of the print anthology through Storm Moon Press' e-store, and 20% of cover price minus distribution costs for sales through third party vendors, also divided equally among all authors. All royalties will be paid quarterly.

==Horror Stories, Weird Literature, Ghost Stories, Literary Fiction.
==Each story must either subtly or directly reflect the title of the anthology.
==Stories between 2000 and 10,000 words.
==One-off payment upon publication: 1p (£0.01) per word
==Start Date for Submissions: 1 November 2012
==End Date for Submissions: 30 May 2013

Submissions (not simultaneous or multiple) as a Word attachment to dflewis48@hotmail.com. As with some earlier Megazanthus Press publications, you may submit by anonymous email and your story will be rejected or accepted before knowing who you are. Also, you may submit non-anonymously. The accepted stories will all be published with their correct by-line. [Please expect a simple acknowledgement within a few days of your submission. Otherwise please send it again.]

Stories must be previously unpublished in any form.

As with the ‘The Horror Anthology of Horror Anthologies’ and ‘The First Book of Classical Horror Stories’, DF Lewis will edit, publish, design, typeset and print (via Lulu) this book. It will be distributed under an ISBN system. Please at least read the reviews of previous Megazanthus Press publications to gauge the type of fiction favoured by the editor.

I may need to keep your story for the whole reading-period but may not be able eventually to accept it depending on the timing of other acceptable stories being submitted to me over the period.

[Note that these are minimal guidelines, just enough to get you started writing something. I checked for the "Submission instructions" before posting this, and there's nothing further up yet. Submissions don't open until 1 May, so I assume something more specific (like where to send subs) will be posted before that. Definitely check Ms. Datlow's journal for more specific instructions before trying to send her anything.]

This is a non-theme, all original anthology of about 125,000 words of terror and supernatural horror. I’m looking for all kinds of horror, but if you’re going to use a well worn trope, try to do something fresh with it. If you’ve read any volumes of The Best Horror of the Year, you’ll know that my taste is pretty eclectic, that I like variety, and that while I don’t mind violence, I don’t think it should be the point of a story. I don’t want vignettes but fully formed stories that are about something. I want to be creeped out.

The pay rate is 7 cents a word up to 10,000 words, but as the anthology is only 125,000 words long, I would prefer stories up to 7500 words.

The open reading period will run from May 1-May 31 2013. Submissions instructions coming soon.

We will be publishing an anthology of vampire fiction Dying to Live in October 2013. Submissions are being accepted until June 1, 2013, which is a change from our original date of August. We are looking for dark vampire stories; please do not send any stories about vampires that sparkle!

== All stories must be in doc. or docx, .rtf format.
== All stories must be anywhere from 2000 to 8000 words long.
== Please use 12 point font and double space your text.
== We are looking for dark Vampires, of the old fashioned kind! Erotica is acceptable as long as the vampires drink human blood, bite, kill and so forth. We are not looking for love story type vampires. Stories that will not be accepted are stories with child rape, molestation, or pedophilia.
== Allow at least 6 weeks before inquiring if your story will be included if you have not heard from us. You will receive an email if your story has been accepted.
== NO SIMULTANEOUS SUBMISSIONS, NO MULTIPLE SUBMISSIONS, NO REPRINTS!

Submissions should be sent electronically as an attachment to: submissions@diabolicpublications.com

On the subject line of the email, include your name, the title of the work you are submitting, and the anthology you are submitting for "Dying to Live".

In the body of the email, include your contact information (Real Name or official pen name, not your online name), the word count of the work you are submitting, and a brief biography. Make certain to use an email address that you have access to all the time as correspondences from us come through email only!

We only accept electronic submissions at this time.

PAY: Made by Paypal only, if you don't have a paypal account please get one.

Fiction: US$.03/word, payable upon publication. Plus, one copy of the edition in which the work appears when edition is published as a paper copy.

Reprints: US$.01/word, payable upon publication. Plus, one copy of the edition in which the work appears when edition is published as a paper copy.

RIGHTS: Exclusive First World English Rights for print and First Electronic Rights for two years from date of print publication. Rights are then no longer exclusive and revert back to the author after the two year period.

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

John Scalzi doesn't make a major point of discussing big publishers messing over writers, so when he does, you know it's bad. He looks over a deal sheet Random House's new electronic imprint Hydra is offering, and points out a few red flags.

* No advance.

* The author is charged "set-up costs" for editing, artwork, sale, marketing, publicity — i.e., all the costs a publisher is has been expected to bear. The "good news" is that the author is not charged up front for these; they're taken out of the backend. If the book is ever published in paper, costs are deducted for those, too. [Note from Angie: there's also a permanent 10% of net charge for the on-going sales and marketing that Hydra most likely won't be doing.]

* The contract asks for primary and subsidiary rights for the term of copyright.

Click through for more detail and some commentary I found pretty entertaining. It's clear, though, that Random House is looking to squeeze as much money from ignorant baby writers as it can, while hoping to pay out little or nothing.

Also recall that "term of copyright" these days means your lifetime plus seventy years. Your grandkids will still be getting royalty statements from Hydra saying, "Nope, haven't made up those costs yet."

This reminds me of the electronic "imprints" set up by some of the other big publishers through AuthorHouse, which were clearly meant to be cash cows for the sponsoring publishers. It looks like someone at Random House figured they could rip off writers just as well on their own, without having to hire another company to do it. Eliminate the middle-man and make more money, right? And hey, some bright RH executive thought of taking the rights for the duration of copyright, which even AuthorHouse, as horrible as its rep might be, doesn't do. Go you, Random House! Way to be eviller than a notoriously deceptive vanity press!

Oh, and in case anyone is wondering, SFWA has issued a statement declaring that Hydra is not a qualifying market. [cough]

Monday, March 4, 2013

I've been on the Oregon coast for the last week and a half, doing two workshops back-to-back. It was a grueling experience, as the single workshop I did last year was. And it was awesome, and I'll definitely be doing it again. I got lots of writing done, and I SOLD A STORY!! Which got the all-caps treatment because it's my first professional sale, as in more than five cents per word, holy freaking yay!!! :D

I'm going to have a story in Fiction River's anthology How to Save the World, edited by John Helfers. (Scroll down a bit -- it's the second book.) Holy sheep, I'm gonna be in a book with David Gerrold!

I've been trying to break into mainstream SF/F for ages, so this is a huge deal for me. I'm still getting this really silly grin on my face whenever I think about it, so I beg pardon of anyone who sees me and thinks o_O about my state of mind. :)

I wrote almost 29K words in February, which is good -- I'm still well ahead of quota for making my 2013 goal. My wordcount meter says I'm at 27%, so I'm where I was hoping to be at about a week into April. That's great; I love having padding on my quota. I was hoping for more in February (January was over 35K) but there were several days when I was in the workshop and frantically reading rather than writing. I count those days well spent, though. I also killed my streak, but I was anticipating that, too. No prob; doing an Oregon workshop is one of the better reasons I can think of for having days with no actual writing.

The workshops I did were The Business and Craft of Short Fiction, and the Anthology Workshop. The Antho Workshop is a repeat for me; it's worth doing over and over, and many writers do. I took a ton of notes, especially at the first one, and learned a lot of stuff I didn't know before, which is the point. (Wow, a story that's in a continually extended option with Hollywood can make you a buttload of money, even if they never make the movie!) Great info; it's going to take a while to absorb it all.

Currently I'm sitting in a hotel room in Portland; I have a flight home at 2:30. I'll do some writing today, then fall into bed (ten hours last night, still not caught up) and my next Thing To Go To is a dentist's appointment on Thursday.

Oh, yeah, didn't blog about that before. :/ So on Wednesday two weeks ago, Jim and I were having dinner at this little cafe across the street. They have these really good ice cream sandwiches -- two chocolate chip cookies, made in-house, with in-house ice cream in the middle, then freeze the whole thing. So I was eating my ice cream sandwich when one of my crowns (upper incisor) snapped off at the gum line. :( Luckily I had a root canal before they put the crown on, so it didn't hurt; I was just damn startled, and then all ACK!! when I realized what'd happened. And that I was getting on a plane Saturday morning to go to the workshops. [headdesk]

I went to my dentist the next morning and they put in a very fragile, non-functional, temporary tooth-like object, cemented to the teeth to either side on the back. I was warned not to bite anything, and not even to brush. And when your dentist tells you not to brush, you know your fragile dental work is FRAGILE. I was very careful, but it was a bit wiggly within about 24 hours. I had some vague hope that it'd last at least until the second workshop, but no luck; it came out just a bit over three days after having been installed. So I've been going just over a week now with this huge gap in my front teeth, and talking a little funny.

I feel like I'm seven again. :P

Anyway, this is fixable, although it's going to be expensive. Civil Service has notoriously lousy dental insurance, and the Pacific Northwest has notoriously expensive dental care, for whatever reason. So the bill for an implant is going to be very large, and our insurance isn't picking up a dollar of it. This is our tentatively planned cruise for this year, going into my mouth.

I just hope my other crowns last longer. At least I know to stay away from the Market Cafe's ice cream sandwiches; that was the most expensive dessert I've ever eaten, by a couple of orders of magnitude.

About Me

My name is Angie and I'm a writer living in Seattle, WA with my husband. I publish science fiction, fantasy and crime stories under Angela Penrose, and romance and erotica under Angela Benedetti. I pretty much live at the computer, either writing or online or both. My schedule is chaotically variable, so I might be awake or asleep at any given moment. It's not all bad; writing at 2am when it's quiet is actually pretty cool.